A midsummer City Council meeting in New York can often be a sleepy event, but the gathering on Thursday was a clear exception. Everyone, after all, was still talking about the Bite. A day earlier, Susan Zhuang, a first-year Democratic councilwoman from Brooklyn who ran on a law-and-order message, was charged with assault after the police said she had bitten an officer at a protest over a proposed homeless shelter. So, as the Council convened its so-called stated meeting, the formal gathering during which bills are introduced or passed, Ms. Zhuang drew much of the attention — and she wasn’t even there. She held her own news conference near the scene of her alleged crime in Brooklyn, although a police photo of the bloody circular gash on the officer’s arm put Ms. Zhuang more in the position of explaining the confrontation than denying it.

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Persons: Susan Zhuang, Zhuang Organizations: councilwoman Locations: New York, Brooklyn